I'm not terribly Tech savey so any suggestions in layman's terms would be most helpful.

What do I need in the way of a capture device to download video from the camera to an iMac?Do I need a capture card for $199 plus a desktop model? Or I can get by with the capture card only? Or desktop model alone?

Check the manual for your camera. You usually don't absolutely need any third-party capture devices (from Black Magic) or anyone just to transfer the video from your camera to any computer. That camera records video to memory cards - so you should just be able to take the card out and plug it in to your computer using any inexpensive card reader.

However..if you do want to capture uncompressed video output direct from your camera (bypassing it's internal compression) - then a capture card might be needed. But... as you say you are new to this... I doubt that is something you will need to do.

Perhaps I should have qualified my comment when I said "I'm new at this." I should have said I'm newdownloading HD video. Our video production company is just starting to move awsy from MiniDvto HD. I am very familiar with how to download tape to FCP and we need faster downloads thanare available with USB. That is why I was trying to find out if we need a capture card and/or external box.So if you can tell me what you would recommend forhigher speed transfers, it would help us choose the right gear.

rgforester wrote:Perhaps I should have qualified my comment when I said "I'm new at this." I should have said I'm new downloading HD video. Our video production company is just starting to move awsy from MiniDv to HD. I am very familiar with how to download tape to FCP and we need faster downloads than are available with USB. That is why I was trying to find out if we need a capture card and/or external box.

So if you can tell me what you would recommend forhigher speed transfers, it would help us choose the right gear.

Having a capture card (like the ones from Black Magic) will make NO difference to speeding up capture from your camera. They are designed primarily to capture in "real time" uncompressed video from whatever video source is connected. That will likely not ever be faster than what you can capture via USB

Have you already tried to "download" HD video from the new cameras via USB? How did you do that? Was it by connecting the camera using it's USB port or were you using a USB connected card reader in to which you placed a memory card from the camera?

Capturing from memory cards (even via USB) is nothing like capturing from tape. It's always way faster than real time.

Other than that... I don't think I can help you any further. Good luck.